The Hero's Journey: Broken Open

My soul tells me, we were all broken from the same nameless heart, and every living thing wakes with a piece of that original heart aching its way into blossom. This is why we know each other below our strangeness, why when we fall, we lift each other, or when in pain, we hold each other, why when sudden with joy, we dance together. Life is the many pieces of that great heart loving itself back together.  ~ Mark Nepo

I’m reading the most helpful book, Broken Open:  How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, by Elizabeth Lesser.  I highly recommend it.

 Our life circumstances have been different, yet what unifies us is that we all have experienced painful times in our lives. My father went to prison for the first time when I was ten years old. My parents divorced and I had to leave my house, neighborhood, all that was familiar to me. In 1984 he was given a life sentence for drug trafficking. Not long ago, my father died in prison. For thirty-five years the only time I got to hold his hand was in the visiting room of a maximum-security federal penitentiary. For years I stuffed my shame and pain associated with these tragedies, until one day I wanted to honestly love my father. I wanted to accept my life circumstances. I wanted to know how to free myself from the bars that I had built around my hurt heart.

 For much of my life I hid behind a veneer of “I’m OK,” because I didn’t want to disturb the status quo of my feelings. I had to be in control, or so I thought, in order to be safe. I marched on, ignored my sadness and stayed busy. Yet, what I now know is that all people have their own set of hurts and secrets. And when I finally started sharing mine, it gave others the voice and courage to share theirs. It’s not what I expected, nor the gift of innate resilience that bolstered my budding vulnerability with expansive vistas of freedom and faith.

Elizabeth Lesser provides a contextual framework, an evolutionary purpose for how we can grow from adversity. It is our choice to face our fear and pain, to say yes to the hero’s journey and rise from the ashes like the Phoenix. And what I discovered is, when I got honest with myself and found my voice my life blossomed. I broke open.

 I sat with my father in the visiting room of the Atlanta Penitentiary and said,” Dad, I didn’t realize how hurt I was.”  He looked back at me with tears in his eyes and said, “I knew you were hurt.”  We both fell silent and cried together. Something happened in that tender, powerful moment that changed me forever. (excerpt: See You in the Sky: A Memoir of Prison, Possibility and Peace ) 

Intention: Follow your longing to go beneath the surface to deeper questions. What is the weight that holds you back? Listen to your soul’s guidance and learn how you can let something die in order for something to live. You can spend a lifetime not listening, but if you listen you most certainly will change. It’s up to you.

“The soul is the wise and whole and brave part of the self. The ageless longing for truth.”  Elizabeth Lesser